A small town in Yorkshire turns racist

A small Yorkshire town has been hugely enriched this year by the arrival of 500 Roma people. The village of Hexthorpe was once boringly, stultifyingly, monocultural – and you would think that locals might have welcomed this influx of vibrant diversity. Not a bit of it – they called a public meeting and complained long and loud in a manner which, frankly, can only be called racist. They warned, too, that there would be violence in the streets.

Is it too much to hope that one day these uneducated and bigoted Yorkshire folk will understand that claiming benefits, fly-tipping, littering the streets, threatening people and playing loud music all night – these were the things of which they complained – are simply expressions of cultural diversity, to be warmly embraced? Why don’t they understand that we all have to get along?

YAB seems not to understand that saying that you don’t like the white working class on the basis that some scumbag or other has put something nasty through your letter box is exactly the same as saying that you don’t like Muslims on the basis that Abu Hamza doesn’t seem like a very nice chap.

Nigel Korwin-Mikke

Interestingly, Roma folks used to successfully claim asylum from “bad” Romania and Slovakia long before these countries joined common markets. What’s happened then? Not so happy having “Roma” around after all, huh?

Max07

You make it sound as though there was a popular vote. None of us had much of a say in who successfully claimed asylum.

jesseventura2

And you wonder why the Romanians want rid of these vermin?

http://twitter.com/sharialawfan Steve Lawrence

Asia for the Asians, Africa for the Africans, White countries are for everyone!

Richard

Your online moniker is fucking offensive.

http://twitter.com/sharialawfan Steve Lawrence

May Allah forgive your crass tongue and guide you toward a righteous life of monogamy with a White or Arab woman.

Ryan Silver

Sure. The asians and the africans and all non-whites will leave Europe-just give us back all the stolen resources from colonialism first and erase the lasting impact of it via multinational corporations. Ya…then we’ll get the F out of Europe. Dumbass.

There is a hamlet on the outskirts of Doncaster built from scratch in the past few years by persons formally referred to with the g word (travellers I suppose would be the terminology today, though it doesn’t fit the particular people) who have made rather large amounts of money fitting soffits and fascias and those other strange replacement plastic things which modern houses have – windows I suppose. It is the height of nouveau riche hideousness by all accounts – my husband likes to do the four counties bike ride just to gaze upon its concrete lions and so on. Anyway in a couple of centuries it might be alright, which probably goes for the Roma of Hexthorpe, too, it’s just what to do until then that’s the problem. A hex might be worth trying perhaps.

Robertus Maximus

I think the Roma, along with any family, friends, and anyone else they can muster who are still in Romania together with any flotsam and jetsam they can pick up along the way, should be encouraged to head north to that exemplar of anti-racist Utopian socialism, and beacon of goodwill to all men – Alex Salmond’s Kingdom of Scotland. Salmond will then be able to demonstrate the far greater warmth and hospitality he espouses, compared to the filthy nationalists south of the border.

Damaris Tighe

Congratulations British ruling class. Of all the problems we’ve had in this country Roma wasn’t one of them. Until now.

gelert

Dave has given his support to letting Albania into the EU. Let’s hope the Italians veto it; they’ve been plagued by them for years.

Mc

Are the Albanians any worse than the Italians, what with a shared obsession with endless blood feuds.

gelert

I know which ones I would prefer as neighbours,

With apologies to Nigel Farage.

Lucy Sky Diamonds

Ever been to Bedford after an england match against Italy?

gelert

No. But I’m sure it’s no worse than any UK town centre on Friday and saturday nights. Know the Bedford area fairly well and some “italians” who live there; they would make fine neighbours.

Lucy Sky Diamonds

2-1! 2-1! 2-1!

ButcombeMan

The Albanians have flooded London with guns, something the Mafia never did.

suzy61

Well, the hand-wringers have got themselves in a bit of a pickle regarding our Roma friends. If only those damn ‘minorities’ in Page Hall hadn’t kicked up such a fuss about the immigrant Roma and their nasty ‘foreign’ habits….I mean what to do when one ‘minority’ displays intolerance to another ‘minority’? One more cynical than me may think shipping our Roma brothers to ‘overwhelmingly white’ areas (Hexthorpe etc..) makes the whole process a little easier to deal with.

Bonkim

For those not familiar with the location, Hexthorpe is part of Doncaster a largish town. Perhaps the council should stop paying housing benefit and force this lot into a camp away from Doncaster.

gelert

Who would have thought that Jeremy Clarkson came from Donny ?

70sgirly

Funny when the influx of Roma were causing problems in Sheffield and the Pakistani community were up in arms, one David Blunkett stepped in to champion the cause of the local community. Stating “We have got to change the behaviour and the culture of the incoming community, the Roma community, because there’s going to be an explosion otherwise. We all know that.”

What goes for Sheffield, goes for Hexham, I suppose.

Wessex Man

Amazing! no comments from tele or Hooky babe!

Grrr8

Possibly bcoz Rod isn’t exactly the most credible source on such issues?

Colonel Mustard

How quaint. You think the anger and resentment of the Hexthorpe locals and what caused it is a made up story?

Mc

They’re in conference formulating a joint statement.

Damaris Tighe

please don’t encourage them

anyfool

More votes for UKIP next year Tele, are you sure they will only take votes from the Tories, Balls the charismatic one has a marginal seat next door to this area, so does Milipede, hopefully goodbye and all that.

Marquess of Salisbury

We Yorkshire folk are terrible aren’t we?! how could we be so narrow-minded?!

Max07

Look at it this way. If rumours about the habits of some of the Roma are true, at least your gardens are getting enriched.

Marquess of Salisbury

Perhaps then we should be grateful! Mind I rarely go to South Yorkshire!

Lucy Sky Diamonds

Ok, Ill smash your windows and intimidate you when you walk down the street. Just before my 5 children steal all your wheels off your expensive merc.

And I will ‘enrich’ your front lawn by excreting my fresh faeces all over it.

Tolerance works both ways.

Lets see if you change your tune then….

What a patronising article. You should be ashamed of yourself. This is the speccie not the bloody guardian.

Dont you dare criticise people without experiencing their genuine concerns.

rodliddle

That’s the spirit, that’s the spirit. Go for it, LSD.

rodliddle

Mind, if you are going to crap on my lawn, watch out for weasels. They’ll be up your jaxie before you can pronounce the word “irony”.

Lucy Sky Diamonds

Exactly. You simply havent got a clue have you in your comfort zone darrrrrn sarrrrrf.

How about sympathising with the plight of the community before jumping to conclusions. Eh?

Not everyone wants to see deadbeats from abroad coming here.

Is quality control too much to ask? Are you saying anyone and everyone should be allowed to just waltz into this country and set up camp?

PS Id leave commentators of your article to it rather than intervening – you only dig yourself a bigger hole otherwise.

Bob339

None at all.

anyfool

The Roma have been hated for centuries, you would have thought that one of them might have decided to change their disgusting ways after all this time, familial inbreeding seems to be the problem with these and others invited by Labour to come and join in the big happy family they want to create, a big happy family that excludes the indigenous people who do not vote Labour.

Kaine

Define ‘indigenous’.

Colonel Mustard

Me and people like me. We know who we are and don’t need to be defined. Or enriched.

Kaine

I don’t know enough about you Colonel for that to be helpful.

girondas

You don’t need to know anything about him as an individual.
You’re floundering again

Kaine

You don’t appear to know what floundering means.

Colonel Mustard

Perhaps you could press the British government for a definition then. They have so far refused to define what indigenous means in the UK as it relates to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Their ethnic categories seek to classify me as “white British” but in fact I’m English and my skin colour is irrelevant.

Kaine

So, can you be English regardless of skin colour?

P_S_W

I think that is his point, quite astute of you to notice.

Damaris Tighe

I agree. The classification ‘white British’ is ridiculous. I would guess that your ethnic group is English & your nationality is British just as I would consider myself of British nationality but not of the English ethnic group. I see ‘British’ as a formal designation of citizenship.

Damaris Tighe

Contrary to the old myth that the British are a ‘nation of immigrants’ modern genetic science has proved that the majority of the British are truly indigenous being descended from people who came here around 15000 years ago. Their language changed several times but their genetic makeup remained surprisingly stable. The Celts, Saxons & Vikings made little genetic impact. See Professor Oppenheimer’s The Origins of the British.

Before you call me raaaacist I am not one of the indigenous British, my family having come here in the 19th century, so have no axe to grind.

Max07

My family came here fairly recently too. All they ever wanted to do was to work hard, fit in and get on. Ethnicity wasn’t terribly fashionable then. I notice that the DM article to which Rod’s article links has attracted some interesting comments. One of the less predictable, given the DM’s readership, said that we shouldn’t blame the immigrants – they are just doing what all of us would do in the circumstances. Forgive me, but I just can’t quite imagine my late Grandma going around trashing the place, creating loud disturbances and (allegedly) cr@pping all over the place. I know that ‘grateful’ has become something of a dirty word, but she did feel grateful to live in a benign place.

Damaris Tighe

The combination of mass immigration & welfare is a disaster. My family (& maybe yours) arrived here before the welfare state. It concentrated their minds wonderfully. Welfare only works where there is a fairly homogenous community (I believe ours was inspired by the welsh mutual-aid associations). People who contribute to these systems don’t like to see their money going to ‘strangers’.

Max07

I agree with all of that. As you (almost) say, there’s nothing like the realisation that you will probably starve if you don’t find a way to earn a living to make you sort out your priorities. I think all the agonising over who is a citizen and who is not would have been a bit lost on my predecessors. You worked, you kept your head down and you didn’t go around looking for trouble, because you probably had enough already.

Damaris Tighe

A polish person posted on another thread that when you’re a guest in someone else’s house you don’t try to rearrange the furniture. I would add that it’s very bad manners!

Kaine

How long exactly do you remain a guest and not a citizen for?

Max07

An interesting question, and one that is difficult to answer. I think that truly to become a citizen you have to do a bit more than play the benefit system, upset the locals and complain that your cultural needs aren’t being met. You need to contribute something positive – you know, working, paying taxes, learning the language and not doing things that your hosts find deeply offensive. I realise, however, that this is just whimsy on my part and that there is no obligation on newcomers to do anything much.

Kaine

Except that’s what the vast majority of immigrants do. Indeed, on this very thread we often hear about how first generation immigrants are hard working, polite people. Otherwise they couldn’t be taking jobs from people already here could they?

Indeed, the complaints seem rather often to be about the children of that generation, who are born in this country. So are they ‘guests’?

Max07

Another interesting one. To return to the subject of this thread – that 500 Roma appear to have been dumped in a small Yorkshire town – what will happen when these people have children? I’m sure they have the matter in hand, as they know that reproduction is the key to obtaining benefits and making it almost impossible for us to remove them, even if UKIP were to win an unlikely landslide victory at the next election. Will the children be citizens? Hmmm. I’ve seen the Roma in action in other parts of Europe and I’m afraid they simply do what their parents did before them. In the little Greek town where I lived for a while we all knew we had to be on the alert when the Roma were nearby. They weren’t citizens in any real sense because they chose to live outside of society.

Kaine

Except this is self perpetuating surely? Roma and traveller children see the deep antagonism of wider society towards them, and so turn inward to the community. Separate, they never develop the skills to obtain employment outside of the community, nor the social connections to escape it. And repeat. It can only be a choice, and therefore incur moral culpability, if there is a route out of the situation.

Damaris Tighe

The problem of the Roma is a circular one as you say but up till now it wasn’t our problem – surely we have enough of our own?

Kaine

There have been Roma and Traveller communities in Britain for centuries. You might argue that recent immigration has made the pre-existing problem more acute, but it didn’t create it.

Now this is exactly the sort of long-term, international humanitarian problem that pan-national institutions are meant to tackle, so let’s get working on a pan-European response.

Max07

Good luck with that one.

Donafugata

Find an uninhibited island in the Atlantic Ocean where they can learn self-sufficiency.

Oh, hang on ……

Kaine

Uninhibited?

girondas

“Now this is exactly the sort of long-term, international humanitarian
problem that pan-national institutions are meant to tackle, so let’s get
working on a pan-European response.”

Yeah, right on. Let us know when you have succeeded – hey perhaps Tony Blair can help you

Max07

‘A pan-European response’. I know this is the Spectator board … but … lol

Max07

You mean, if we’re awfully, awfully nice to them, things might change? I really hope you’re right. I really do. But I’m afraid I am pessimistic. Many of us are fed up with pouring resources into migrants in the hope that things might come good. And we don’t have a gun-toting Greek police force to sort things out when it all goes pear-shaped. Believe me, no one argues with the local αστυvομικοί.

Here’s another question about citizenship. If, God forbid, we had another major conflict, who would fight and possibly die for this country, and who would suddenly decide they were really rather foreign and scurry off elsewhere? Interesting, that one.

Kaine

I mean that the Roma have been driven from one end of Europe to the other for at least the last five centuries, because each country individually said they weren’t their problem. Well perhaps they aren’t, but they certainly are a concern for the continent at large, and centuries of ignoring the issue hasn’t changed that. So what do we wish to do about it?

It would depend on the nature of the conflict. I do know that in the last existential conflict there were plenty of non-Britons who fought for this country.

Max07

Ah, yes. Existential. Almost my favourite word, after ‘paradigm’. Yes, plenty of non-Brits fought with us in the last conflict. But you think they should be able to pick and choose?

Kaine

Everyone chooses.

Max07

Well, British citizens didn’t have much choice about fighting in WW2. They were simply called up. So to me that’s a pretty good definition of a citizen. You take the rough with the smooth.

Kaine

There were conscientious objectors. Not nearly so many as in the Great War, but then that demonstrates the different nature of the conflict.

Max07

Oh gawd. I felt the conscientious objectors coming on. Yes, there were a few conscientious objectors, just as I’m sure there were a few Roma in Ye Olde Tudor Times. But it’s just not enough to substantiate your argument. Most people of the right age just got summoned and went. Every family that was around during the conflict had loved ones who were affected and it’s still talked about by my parent’s generation. It wasn’t a pleasant thing to do, but it was their duty to their country. In those quaint old fashioned days, people had duties as well as rights. Not all conscientious objectors kept themselves safe, either. Some took highly risky roles on the battlefields.

SewAShearedKilo

We don’t expect to have to be”awfully, awfully nice” to the native population to get tWhy do we have to be “awfully, awfully nice to them” to get them to behave as good citizens?

Max07

My comment was meant to be a little bit flip. No, I don’t believe we should have to do it but it IS what often happens here as we try to placate groups that aren’t fitting in. We have, if the original article is to be believed, a Yorkshire police force that is currently learning Roma, presumably so that the boys in blue can explain to people who no speaka the lingo that English people don’t particularly warm to migrants who behave aggressively and litter the place. It’s nuts, but it’s what happens here. I’m certain that, had I rashly decided to trash the little Greek town where I once lived, the local police there would have taken a rather more robust attitude.

SewAShearedKilo

My apologies for (a) using your comment as a “trigger” for getting my own views in the open on this and (b) not realising the irony implicit in your comment. My embarrassment is even greater in that we both seem to be coming at this from very much the same perspective.

Damaris Tighe

I think immigrants stop being guests when ‘we’ means to them their fellow Brits, as well as or instead of their minority group.

Kaine

By that logic there are a lot of Scots, Welsh and English who don’t qualify, as they see the other nations of Britain as ‘other’.

Colonel Mustard

I have no problem, as an Englishmen, thinking ‘we British’ and considering the Scots my brothers, although in reality they are probably more akin to cousins. I have no problem in considering the returning sons of Empire in the same way, regardless of ethnicity or skin colour.

But please don’t try to tell me that as an Englishman living in England I am not indigenous and that I’m as much an immigrant as a Romanian who has just turned up and can’t speak English. It won’t convince but it will anger.

Kaine

There have been Roma and Travellers here for centuries. So I’ll ask again, is an English-speaking Roma whose family have been in England since the Tudors English?

You say it’s not about race, so what’s the problem?

Colonel Mustard

Depends whether they self-identify as English or Roma. I suspect it would mainly be the latter but I have encountered Roma people of shorter residence who are settled and publicly self-identify as English.

As to the problem you should direct that question to the people of Hexthorpe.

Max07

Oh come on, exactly how many Roma people can trace their origins in this country back to Tudor times? The point is that although there have always been immigrants to this country – my family amongst them – we have never experienced mass migration on this scale before and we have certainly never been required to house, feed, and pander to foreign groups before. Perhaps, however, we should just give up and let rip. Once the country is bankrupt, devoid of green spaces and has the law and order of a third world hell-hole, at least no one else will wish to come here.

Kaine

I don’t know, but we know from the historical documentation they were here.

The bulk of the population shift has been young, skilled, Eastern Europeans who seem perfectly contented to sign up to British society. The second most spoken language in Britain isn’t Urdu or Bengali, it’s Polish.

We’re not actually short on green space in Britain, but if we were we could always put some of those ridiculous linseed fields to better use.

Anyway, this is global capitalism in the 21st century. It doesn’t care about your philistine sentimentalism, and you’re not prepared to countenance another economic system, so it’s your lot.

Max07

What economic system would you suggest as a better alternative? And don’t forget Col. Mustard’s question about Ireland.

I am sorry you don’t like the linseed fields. I find them rather attractive.

girondas

Until the householder asks you to leave
You have a problem with words
Buy dictionary or ask your mother what they mean

Kaine

The ‘householder’ in Britain is the Crown, you are a mere subject.

Colonel Mustard

Er, not quite right. A ‘British subject’ is fairly closely defined by government and has nothing to do with the Crown. This might help:-

I didn’t say it did. Girondas seemed to be of the impression that one group of British citizens were ‘householders’ and another part were ‘guests’. Legally this is nonsense. However if we’re talking about supreme authority in Britain, as a ‘householder’ might have, it is indeed the Crown as an institution, to which our government pledges fealty.

Colonel Mustard

When in Rome…

Kaine

And again we come back to the point. Who are the Romans? In Rome it was anyone with citizenship.

Colonel Mustard

It’s a saying not a historical or philosophical argument.

Max07

Full Roman citizenship was difficult to obtain.

Kaine

Yes it was, but once you got it you got it, even if, like St Paul, you were a Near Eastern religious fanatic who tried to overturn the entire basis of the Empire.

Max07

Well, yes, we’ve had quite a lot of home grown British nutters over the years who wished to destroy us. That doesn’t seem to me to be a reason to import yet more.

Max07

PS If I’m right in assuming that you, Kaine, feel that the distinction between ‘citizen’ and ‘guest’ is a bogus one and that everyone has equal status from the day they set foot in the country, the Romans are a rather poor example of that sort of thinking, since non-citizens had little status.

Damaris Tighe

Interesting question & one I’ve often thought about. My father was not born here & my mother was I think 2nd generation British. All I can say is that as a family we still behaved as if we were ‘guests’.

SewAShearedKilo

Just explain how you can move into somebody’s house without rearranging it, Whether you manage to get by without rearranging the furniture is irrelevant. I would not call that “bad manners”. I would call that invasion.

Or did the Polish person think that all the resources s/he used after arrival were just sitting by waiting for an altruistic immigrant (maybe like s/him) to use? Or think that the indigenous population were so well off that they had on-demand access to all the resources they needed, and their lives would be totally unaffected by the arrival of Polish people and their dependants seeking to use those resources.

The only views that should really count in this debate are those of the indigenous population. The views of prospective and actual immigrants, presenting selective, biased and perverted arguments in favour of their invading the UK, should be entirely discounted. And the views of those indigenous people (academics, intellectuals, economists, journalists – Rod Liddle being an obvious exception, Nigel Farage and the like) who would not suffer but would benefit from immigration should exposed for what they are – mere self interest at the expense of other natives whose lives are being blighted.

Especially please don’t tell me that these immigrants are hard-working,nice people full of all kinds of good qualities.. That is an implied insult to the natives of this country. We already have plenty of hard-working nice indigenous people in this country. We don’t need any more from beyond our borders.

Damaris Tighe

I agree. Don’t know what you thought I was saying. Think about it again.

SewAShearedKilo

When you present somebody else’s case (as you did), and that case is faulty, and you fail to analyse that case effectively, you should not be surprised when that case is challenged. As the Polish person whose case you were presenting was not around to ask, I challenged you for further clarification. Most of the comment is really a rhetorical challenge to the implications of the case of the Polish person. It was never meant to imply that these were your views. If you look carefully, you will see that I never drew out any such implications.

Now, I am pleased that you agree with my analysis. But let us be clear, it is not at all the same as the analysis of the Polish person you quoted.
I am very sorry if you feel that I may not have understood what you actually were saying, but I understood only too well, and I have no reason to think again.
With this little clarification, as we agree on this issue, we should now move on together.

Max07

Ah, but Kaine would tell you that we are all equally indigenous, even if we only arrived on the Sleazyjet yesterday – and therefore all entitled to the same things. Quite where this sort of thinking will lead, with schools and hospitals already full to bursting and our ‘recovery’ questionable, is anyone’s guess. But that is in effect how we’re operating.

Kaine

Except that’s a meaningless statistic. If Someone who can trace their ancestry back to the ice-age hunters has children with a first generation immigrant from, say, Kenya, their children will be able to trace back their ancestry to those ice age hunters. However they won’t be ticking the ‘White British’ box on the census. So are those kids ‘indigenous’?

And please don’t try to put words in my mouth.

girondas

No need to bother.

Damaris Tighe

No it means that they’ve merged with the indigenous people, their skin colour is irrelevant.

Kaine

I’m not sure I understand you answer. If all it takes to be indigenous is to be descended from those ice-age hunters, then the kids are indigenous. Correct?

Damaris Tighe

Yes, & that’s how incomers get incorporated into the English/Scots/Welsh/British people.

Kaine

Thank you for providing an answer. It’s more than many others seem to have been able to do.

Colonel Mustard

Maybe the reluctance to answer your questions has something to do with the fact that they are merely verbal traps contrived to show how clever you are? Questioning orthodoxy is fine but would be more credible if you directed it at your own sometimes.

RBcritique

Well said, and thank you for taking the time.

http://paulweston101.blogspot.com Paul Weston

Define treachery.

Kaine

What the loser says the winner did.

http://paulweston101.blogspot.com Paul Weston

Thanks for that deep thought, Aristotle. You are somewhat intellectually challenged methinks.

Kaine

Actually it’s Sir John Harington. Feel free to ask an adult who he is.

girondas

Which one?

girondas

You could have looked it up yourself if you didn’t know what it meant:
“originating in and characteristic of a particular region or country”
OK?
Any other words you don’t understand?

Kaine

Under that definition anyone born in Britain could claim to be indigenous. That does not appear, from context, to be what the poster meant, hence a question for clarification.

Humans as a species are indigenous to East Africa. Everywhere else we’re immigrants. So if Britain has an ‘indigenous’ population, it means you can become indigenous after a period of time in a region. I want to know how long that is.

I understand these are hard questions, so feel free to go play in the sunshine while the grown-ups talk.

Colonel Mustard

What you are doing, really, is just denying that England has an indigenous population of English people, presumably to justify or maybe dismiss as an issue the mass immigration and its impact of recent years. You should just say that.

I bet you wouldn’t try that on with Ireland…

Kaine

As I’ve said elsewhere on this thread, humans are ‘indigenous’ to East Africa. All else is arguments between different waves of immigrants, between those that came today and those that came yesterday.

Now one can make arguments on the basis of personal values, or community links, or culture. If that’s what you mean by indigenous well then let’s have that discussion. But if this is about blood, then it’s simply nonsense. And while you might not care about skin colour, you must surely be aware of how the language you’re using is the same as that of the 14 words brigade.

Lastly, please don’t guess at arguments I haven’t made Colonel, nor make estimates of my willingness to make this argument to others. You are evidently not very good at it, as you are incorrect on both counts.

Colonel Mustard

What you are doing, really, is just denying that England has an indigenous population of English people, presumably to justify or maybe dismiss as an issue the mass immigration and its impact of recent years. You should just say that.

And a living breathing example of why so many of us won’t be voting Conservative next year.

ButcombeMan

I am encouraged that another finds the strident Soubry as odious as I do.

The Masked Marvel

Never mind, Rod. Just keep voting Labour. There’s a good lad.

Max07

Just idly musing … if we ever did say enough is enough, would we be able to send them home, as the French did with a few planeloads recently? Or would they be allowed to remain here on the basis that they had managed to clock up a prodigious number of sprogs who would be permanently damaged if they weren’t allowed to stay and terrorise the streets of Yorkshire after dark? I tend to the latter, rather bleak scenario.

FrenchNewsonlin

Re planeloads: a pointless, revolving door operation as it turns out. They just jump the next bus back and thanks to the five freedoms and a bit of Schengen no-one is permitted to stop them.

Max07

Yes, agreed. Nonetheless, I quite admire the French for sticking two fingers up at the Yooman Rites industry and packing their unwelcome visitors back off home. I suspect they’ll be quite prepared to do it again and again if necessary. Quite how this squares with being a big player in the EU is beyond me, however. France plays a key part in making the rules and then flouts them whenever they threaten its interests. Somehow it always gets away with doing so, too. Perhaps it’s time to follow their lead and stopped being so mimsy.

Kaine

Can I just check which rights under the European Convention you feel are superfluous, and that the architects of the document right after the Second World War added erroneously?

Max07

The point I was making is that the French have a very flexible view of international and EU law, while we poor dolts across the channel still feel we have to follow everything to the letter – much to our detriment. So, while in principle subscribing to the free movement of EU citizens across borders, in practice the French don’t mind rounding up unwanted troublemakers and sending them home. There was quite a hoo-ha at the time, I seem to remember, but the French still carried on regardless and as far as I tell there has been no comeback. On the whole France looks after its own industries, too. It just doesn’t believe that the rest of the EU should be protectionist.

Kaine

Britain’s dogmatic adherence to rules of the single market is about a right-liberal antagonism to state intervention. A lot of things which are supposedly ‘banned’ by the EU British governments simply do not wish to do, and EU legislation makes a handy excuse.

We certainly do break the rules when the rules prevent this sort of market fundamentalism. The banning of British Rail from bidding for franchises after privatisation was contrary to EU law, but the government was hardly going to fight itself.

Max07

What about packing the Roma back home? Should be emulate the French on that one too, on the basis that not to do so is just plain old British laziness and unwillingness to tackle the problem?

Blindsideflanker

You cynic, enrichment comes in many forms, and you must be ready and willing to welcome it when ever it turns up on your doorstep.

artemis in france

One wonders just how this large mass of Roma found themselves in a small Yorkshire town. After all, the weather will be colder and welter than they’re used to. What induced them to end up there? Can anyone enlighten me?

Max07

I don’t know but my guess is a few of them got sent there because the accommodation was cheap in comparison with the South, and then all their mates joined them because that way they could have a right old time together without bothering with any of that rubbish about integration or learning the language of their hosts.

laurence

I suspect it’s for the excellent Taylors of Harrogate Jamaica Blue Mountain coffee. It is roasted in house.

Wessex Man

the country is full!

Colonel Mustard

I expect decisions by council officials and social workers are involved somewhere in the chain of evidence.

Bob339

Benefits.

Chris Thompson

Don’t know about Doncaster, but this article from a recent edition of Private Eye goes some way to explaining why the same thing happens in Rotherham.

These Roma people have benighted many a community as well as all the other
miscreants we allow to live here. How on earth to they enrich our country.
That’s the word beloved of EU loving Lib Dems and Others ‘ enrich’ and make
us a better country.
These Roma people cause so much stress, some people worry about going out
and house prices decrease.
We have has some in the West Country a while ago, but they were moved on,
one actually found their way to our cottage saying their child had no food !!!
And its NOT racist Roma people like Muslims are not a race. Racism is word
politicians and those of the left use wrongly just to manipulate and belittle.

Chingford Man

I’m sure they could find a new site in Hampstead where the bien pensants would welcome them.

SewAShearedKilo

It seems that a lot of people on this site would be only too happy to help move these immigrants from Hexthorpe to Hampstead. When can we start?

Max07

I doubt Hampstead is sufficiently salubrious for them. They camped out in Park Lane last year.

Fraser Bailey

If only the Roma would go and camp on the garden or gardens belonging to Clegg, Blair or Toynbee. In not doing so, the Roma are depriving such leaders and opinion formers of the diversity they so enthusiastically celebrate.

Max07

Yes, I remember thinking similar thoughts when Vanessa Redgrave took up the cause of the Dale Farm Travellers, who had been delighting the neighbours with their vibrancy for quite some time. As she cried real tears for these ‘good people’ on screen, my thoughts turned to her back garden. Was there room for a few vibrant caravan dwelling folk there, I wondered?

laurence

There’s certainly a great deal of space between her ears.

gelert

That was one of her best pieces of acting with a load of hypocrisy thrown in for good measure. VR is the archetypal luvvie.

laurence

Which of Polly’s gardens? The one in Islington or the one at her Tuscan villa?

gelert

I thought she had one in the country for the w/e as well.

sebastian2

Both, I think. Even Romas need an Italian holiday.

grammarschoolman

Surely Roma is already in Italy?

sebastian2

At Toynbee’s expense? I do hope so. Really, I do.

sebastian2

Nice thought Fraser. They’re also depriving those leaders and opinion formers of the loss of property values they so worthily sacrifice others to.

Chris Hobson

Clegg’s constituency is not too far away, actually his is the wealthiest in Yorkshire.

ChrisTavareIsMyIdol

The police would be there and moving them on within 30 minutes.

MikeF

Wasn’t there something similar in Sheffield a few months back that led Nick Clegg and David Bluckett to endorse the views of the protestors? I hear no such endorsments on this occasion but the cause of the complaints is the same so could it be something to do with the identity of the complainants…

Mike Barnes

Yes, dead right. It happened in Page Hall Sheffield where Pakistani migrants have been settled for decades. So you’ve one ethnic minority group complaining about the behavior of the new ethnic minority group.

If it had been in a white area, then obviously it’s just the white British people being racist to our new gypsy friends, but here you have British Asians and Pakistanis complaining so it’s a different story.

What on earth can the metropolitan press do about that? You can hardly call the Page Hall Pakistanis racist.

No wonder it was barely mentioned.

Roger Hudson

What can 500 people do to be able to live in Hexthorpe ? The government are mad, .
Perhaps if the police arrest and imprison all the original residents the Roma can take over their homes, i don’t see them running the tea shops very well.

fundamentallyflawed

Tarmac your drive perhaps?

Max07

No. That would upset the Irish travellers. You’d have tarmac wars.

Wessex Man

too much like hard work for them.

Max07

Maybe they could read your tea leaves, though.

Bob339

Things may be coming to a head – finally. Time we got these beggars out of our country along with all other foreign wrongdoers.

mandelson

Rod – I think this is what the average BBC drone / CiF blogger thinks in reality. Send in the Ecky Thump squad.